Various systems and/or devices from similar or different fields can interact with each other. Example of fields may be: multimedia, telecommunications, vehicle electrical systems, home compliance, etc.
Interaction between devices and/or systems may be for different functions. Functions include, but are not limited to: control; information sharing; storage; communication between different entities; a combination of two or more of the above as well as other.
As non-limiting examples: an external-hard disc device may store data obtained from a computer; a television device may obtain video and audio from a DVD (digital versatile disc) and/or a personal media player; a computer may control a printer or scanner; a Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) transceiver may be connected to a computer for wireless connection to the internet or other devices/systems; and so on.
The connectivity between different media and/or systems and/or devices is possible partially due to different types of: connector; converters; regulation; protocols; etc. Some of the connectivity between the different devices and/or systems may be via: physical connectors and cables, wireless connections, and/or a combination of them. A device and/or system may be connected to one or more other devices/systems via different connection type.
Each device and/or system may have specific connectivity requirements. Connectivity requirements may be physical connectivity requirements and/or protocol communication requirements, for example. Physical connectivity requirements may include: input and output data interface requirements; input and output voltage requirements; etc. Protocol communication requirements may include, for instance, data transfer protocol requirements.
Thus, different fields/systems/devices may have different standard and/or custom connector having designated parameters. Example of connector's parameters may be: size, labeling, interface parameters, structure, etc. Interface parameters may include: number of connectivity pads (pins), the layout of the connectivity pads and their physical size, and so on.
There are many types of different connectors. Examples of different standard connector types are: An eight positions-eight conductors (8P8C) a modular connector with eight positions all containing conductors most famous for its use in Ethernet; A D− subminiature electrical connector commonly used for the RS-232 serial port on: modems, computers, telecommunications, test and measurement instruments; An HDMI connector (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) compact audio/video interface for transferring uncompressed video data and compressed/uncompressed digital audio data from a HDMI-compliant device (“the source device”) to a compatible computer monitor, video projector, digital television, or digital audio device;
A Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector a serial bus standard to interface devices, widely used among personal computers (PCs), APPLE MACINTOSH and many other devices, some types of USB 2.0 have a 4-pin connector USB 3.0 has 9 pins, surrounded by a shield; A Power connector which often include a safety ground connection as well as the power conductors for different household equipment; A RF Connector used at radio frequencies having constant impedance of its transmission line; a R-TNC (Reverse threaded Neill-Concelman) connector used for Wi-Fi antennas; A BNC connector is common for radio and test equipment; DC connector an electrical connector for supplying direct current (DC) power; Hybrid connectors having housings with inserts that allow intermixing of many connector types, such as those mentioned above; optical fiber connectors; and many more different types of connectors.
Each field/system/device may have a standard or custom electrical cable having different parameters. Example of electrical cable's parameters may include: length, cable diameter, number of inner-wire, inner-wire coloring, inner-wire diameter, cable color, labeling, insulation/shielding, winding/twisting, a combination of these as well as other parameters.
A cable is most often two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted, or braided together to form a single assembly. Any current-carrying conductor, including a cable, radiates an electromagnetic field. Likewise, any conductor or cable will pick up energy from any existing electromagnetic field around it, and in the first case, may result in unwanted transmission of energy that may adversely affect nearby equipment or other parts of the same piece of equipment; and in the second case, unwanted pickup of noise that may mask the desired signal being carried by the cable.
There are particular cable designs that minimize electromagnetic pickup and transmission. Three of the principal design techniques are shielding, coaxial geometry, and twisted-pair geometry, for example. Shielding makes use of the electrical principle of the Faraday cage. The cable is encased for its entire length in foil or wire mesh. In some cables a grounded shield on cables operating at 2.5 kV or more gathers leakage current and capacitive current.
Coaxial design helps to further reduce low-frequency magnetic transmission and pickup. In this design, an inner conductor is surrounded by a tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. Many coaxial cables also have an insulating outer sheath or jacket. The foil or mesh shield has a circular cross section and the inner conductor is exactly at its center. This causes the voltages induced by a magnetic field between the shield and the core conductor to consist of two nearly equal magnitudes which cancel each other.
Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources. A twist rate (also called pitch of the twist, usually defined in twists per meter) makes up part of the specification for a given type of cable. Where nearby pairs have equal twist rates, the same conductors of the different pairs may repeatedly lie next to each other, partially undoing the benefits of differential mode. For this reason, it is commonly specified that, at least for cables containing small numbers of pairs, the twist rates must differ.
Twisted pair cables are often shielded in an attempt to prevent electromagnetic interference. Because the shielding is made of metal, it may also serve as a ground. Usually a shielded or a screened twisted pair cable has a special grounding wire added called a drain wire which is electrically connected to the shield or screen.
This shielding can be applied to individual pairs, or to the collection of pairs. When shielding is applied to the collection of pairs, this is referred to as screening. Shielding provides an electric conductive barrier to attenuate electromagnetic waves external to the shield and provides conduction path by which induced currents can be circulated and returned to the source, via ground reference connection.
A few examples of different field electrical cables can include: Category 1 cable (Cat 1) or voice-grade copper is a grade of unshielded twisted pair cabling designed for telephone communications; Cat6 (Category 6 cable) a standardized cable for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers); An HDMI cables of about 5 meters (16 ft) can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications by using 28 AWG (0.081 mm2) conductors or by 24 AWG (0.205 mm2) conductors, an HDMI cable can reach lengths of up to 15 meters (49 ft).
Individual USB cables can run as long as 5 meters for 12 Mbps connections and 3 meters for 1.5 Mbps. With hubs, devices can be up to 30 meters away from the host, the USB 2.0 type cable has two wires that supply the power to the peripherals (−/+)5 volts (red color) and ground (brown) and a twisted pair (yellow and blue) of wires to carry the data. On the power wires, a computer can supply up to 500 milliamps of power at 5 volts; etc.
Although some cables and connectors have standard specification (parameters), others may have a custom tailored-made specification. Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) as well as automotive and defense industries often require custom cables and/or connectors for their equipment, for example. Tailoring may include any one, any combination, or all of the following different variables: lengths, insulation coloring, labels, sizes, diameter, etc. Further, the Cable Harnesses may be tailored. For example, a Cable Harness may have two or more connectors, connected by any topology and connection scheme according to a customer demand.